I knocked on the door of Fame,
She kindly opened up for me and
spoke my name
And smiling, bid me enter
(I must have made the grade this time)
Inside lay a whole new world, a world
of wonder
She looked at me as if to say "Where were you all this time, we've been waiting on you".
Well she fussed over me something
terrible
Lavishing on me gifts and sweets
aplenty
Showering me with praise and high
accolades
She was great she was... O! She was
lovely!
Bestowed on me great new names,
I was an intellectual now, a member of
the intelligentsia
I was a 'great artiste', a Big Star
I was part of the Elite
I was one of them now, I was one of
them.
I got to sit on my little seat at the Big
Table
The others sitting there they all smiled
down at me
" Look at me now ", I thought to myself, " look where I am and who I am, who would have believed it ".
Puffed me up no end she did, inflated
my ego
I thought I might up and float away
And for awhile, a little while I was
happy.
II
But the House of Fame had another
face I found
Would invite young hopefuls in from
outside, young aspiring artists
Allow them to come and read their
works, exhibit their wares
While those sitting there around the
table, they'd judge them
Like little Roman emperors we were, giving a thumbs up or thumbs down
Some of my fellows, they were quite
brilliant at it
The way they could dissect a work, get
right to the heart of it
And sum it all up,
And they could be so funny with it as
well
They'd make you laugh with their
witty remarks
But there were times though, when
things they could get a bit ******
When they'd turn on someone, heap
derision on their work.
There was this one young lad I
remember
In his hands he clutched some papers,
He held his whole world, his whole
life in those papers
You could see it in him, just how much
it meant to him,
Sad to say though, he wasn't all that
good
Well they just took him apart, they hit
him like a hurricane
You could see his disappointment, see
his face drop
His world start to crumble,
his hopes and dreams start to die
Could see him almost shrivel up right
before your eyes
He'd may as well have been in front of
a firing squad,
"It had to be done", my fellows would say, " you had to be ******* them, they
had to be told"
And they could be so witty, my fellows,
so funny
They'd make you laugh, laugh at
anything
They all laughed, I laughed too and then...and then, I thought of you, I thought of you.
III
Now some writers when their very
young write great stuff even then
I'd be only too proud to have written it
myself if I could
But when I think back to what I wrote
early on
I close my eyes and wince as if in pain,
I shake my head and grimace, "awful,
terrible stuff, what was I thinking"
Guileless, naive, infantile,
incomprehensible even to myself a
lot of it, without wit or cunning
If any of it ever came to light I'd be so
embarrassed, I'd be mortified,
scandalised
I feel I'd have to flee the country, go
and live in some remote jungle some
place
And never show my face again, I
thought it that bad,
It was like some ***** guilty secret I
had to hide.
And you know I couldn't help thinking
what if it was you standing there
Before this - this Inquisition, reading
your work
How they'd listen to you probably
with mouths wide open almost in
disbelief
Barely able to contain their laughter
And when you'd finished
How they'd wink and smile knowingly
at one another and maybe say
something like
"And what do we have here, what
exotic creature
From under what gilded stone have
you come out from under"
And then they'd lay into you... "this
*******, this ****, this mindless
drivel, I never laughed so much in
my life! these inane ramblings,
This guy he must be the village idiot",
And what would I do, would I rush to
your defence, would I lift a finger
to help you... No! not a chance
I'd just sit their silent and not let on I
knew you, just watch them take you
apart
Like lions in the arena, tearing you
asunder
I'd even join in, yea, I'd laugh too,
And what if your eyes met mine, well
I'd quickly look away,
" I don't know you, you're not me,
you're not mine,
And if you were I'd disown you
I'd have you erased from my past,
You're an embarrassment to me
You're worlds away from who I am
now".
And later in my room alone would I
think of you
And what it was like for you back
then,
And that world you came from
Would I remember a boy so utterly
lost with no hope of ever getting
back
All alone with no one to show him the
way
With a mind like a war zone, broken
and bloodied, pummeled from every
side
Trying to make sense of a crazy world
Trying desperately to keep a grip on
life
To cling onto something, anything
that'd keep him afloat,
Trying to write because he thought it
was the only thing left that he could
do
(Someone who'd never even been a
reader of books...
Do many writers write just to stay
alive ?)
And the more I thought about it the
more I began to admire you
How really it was quite amazing you
were able to write anything at all...
And to think that I would just sit there
and watch this, your... your
crucifixion and do nothing,
That I could betray so brave and
beautiful a boy,
Wasn't the shame not yours but all
mine.
And maybe they'd bring you back a
second night saying - laughing!
"This one was so good, we had to bring
him back again to impart some
more of his little gems",
And to see you there the tear stained
face, the dead eyes with no light left
in them
Devoid of all dignity now, begging
them for some sign of approval,
some gesture, anything at all !
Looking at them as if they were God
Almighty
And you were nothing but a piece of
**** on their shoe
Would I finally have the guts to stand
up and call a halt, would I !
Jump over their Big Table, go and take
you in my arms
And tell you" It was alright, that I was
here now and was so sorry I hadn't
been before ",
And then turning to them say -admit,
" This, this *******, this drivel, this
village idiot
This was me when I was young,
It kept me alive, it gave me hope when
there was no hope ",
And smiling at them I'd say, " and I'd choose him every time over any of you
sitting there,
What do you know of me and my life,
what I've been through, were you
there ?
And turning to you again I'd say,
"Let's get out of this place, we don't
belong here
This isn't us, this isn't who we are,
Let's go home the two of us, you and
me together,
Let's go home.
Never been to the world of fame, this is just an invented story. Is not so much about fame as about self acceptance and accepting those parts of ourselves we'd rather hide and bury and not let the world see.
